The novel “What Mad Universe” by Fredric Brown was published for the first time in 1949.

Keith Winton is the editor of a science fiction magazine. While he’s a guest in the villa of his publisher, an experimental rocket that isn’t working as expected releases a very powerful electrical discharge that strikes him. Apparently, Keith survives with no consequences but soon realizes that something is wrong when his coins are viewed as something completely out of the ordinary and he stumbles upon an alien.

Soon, Keith becomes a fugitive because he’s mistaken for a spy in the pay of alien enemies. He manages to return to New York but there the situation seems even worse because the city is among the targets in an interplanetary war. At night there’s the most complete darkness and Keith has to face various types of danger while trying to figure out what happened to him.

Fredric Brown had already published several science fiction short fiction but only novels of other genres, especially mystery. Putting together his experiences, the author wrote “What Mad Universe”, a novel that is full of humor and is in many ways a satire of the pulp magazine era science fiction.

The protagonist Keith Winton remains involved in an accident that transports him into a parallel universe where the typical elements of pulp magazines really exist. There are girls who wear very skimpy or transparent clothes, insectoid aliens, spotless heroes  and other stereotypes of that genre.

The initial part of “What Mad Universe” doesn’t show openly its satirical elements and rather focuses on the shock suffered by Keith Winton when he has to face a world that suddenly is no longer his one. The protagonist is mistaken for an Arthurian aliens spy and must escape because spies are to be shot on sight. He manages to get to New York, but the night is absolutely dark because the artificial mistout isused to get a total curfew.

The tension is very strong and the pace very fast in this part of the novel because Keith Winton continuously risks his life and has to move very quickly in a world he doesn’t recognize. When he finally starts getting an idea of what happened to him and the characteristics of the world in which he ended up, the satirical element of the story becomes predominant.

The mad universe pulp magazines turns out to be existing and among the infinite parallel universes existing Keith Winton was transported in that one. Fredric Brown is extraordinary in the way he plays with the clichés of the science fiction of that era. The protagonist, who knows them perfectly because he runs a pulp magazine, gradually understands how to exploit them to improve his situation.

“What Mad Universe” is a short novel by modern standards because he followed those of the ’40s. For this reason the pace is fast, especially in the first part, with constant twists. The management of the characters is inevitably peculiar in the sense that the story is set almost entirely in a parallel universe in which pulp magazines characters are real. The consequence is that the characters deliberately follow certain clichés and for this reason this is positive.

Fredric Brown plays with the pulp science fiction clichés but he does so in a sophisticated way so in the end “What Mad Universe” is a humorous and serious novel at the same time. It’s rightly become a science fiction classic and despite its age is still an excellent story. In my opinion it’s a must-have for any science fiction fan.